Chicago Business Attorney Blog

January 21, 2020

Tired of those RoboCalls?

We all get them … and we get them all the time … and we are all tired of them … and we all cuss them out!

Many of those calls are illegal. Some of the robocalls you may have agreed to receive when you signed up for certain services – like those reminders that your prescription needs to be refilled – and those are legal. But the automated, unsolicited calls coming from other countries are finally getting some attention from the federal government.

The dead heads in the House and Senate have finally agreed on something and adopted the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (“TRACED Act”) at the end of 2019 and it was signed into law at the end of 2019. The TRACED Act’s stated purpose is to limit the increasing number of illegal robocalls and other violations of the telemarketing laws. The Act also gives the FCC more powers to punish violators under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) and to seek out violators in foreign countries.

January 15, 2020

Should Gun Carrying Customers Be Welcomed – or Banned?

by George Bellas

Can a business ban guns from the business and workplace?

If a customer walked into your retail business or professional office carrying a gun, would you be comfortable with that, or would it feel a little too much like the O.K. Corral? What if they were carrying their weapon openly?

Businesses in Oklahoma (postal abbreviation: OK) have had a new reason to ask themselves those questions since November 1, when a change in state law enabled most Oklahoma residents to carry firearms without a license. That follows a 2012 law that gave licensed firearms carriers the ability to open-carry weapons. Most businesses in the state do not seem to have changed their policies, according to the Oklahoma Retail Merchants Association, which has more than 300 members including both mom-and-pop Main Street businesses and national chains. While some have been considering the question, most continue to welcome gun-toting patrons.

December 30, 2019

Non-Compete Clauses just got tougher in Illinois

by Bellas & Wachowski - Attorneys at Law

Non-competition agreements (“non-competes”) have long been viewed as viable means for Chicago area business owners to prohibit former employees from taking confidential information and using it to unfairly compete against the business. Non-competes are actually prohibited in some states, but not Illinois.

Illinois allows the use of non-competes with some limitations. Illinois employers are allowed to use non-competes provided they reasonably protect the employer’s legitimate business interests. What this means has been left to the courts, and there has been a steady erosion of the effectiveness of non-competes by limiting the scope of those agreements.

Illinois has passed several laws recently which limit the effectiveness of employee non-competes and which should be of concern to Chicago area business owners:

December 27, 2019

Illinois Cannabis Laws and Property Ownership

by George Bellas

Illinois Cannabis Laws create new issues for Property Owners

Cannabis may be legal in Illinois after January 1, but it is still illegal under federal laws. This will make for some interesting discrepancies in how the laws will be applied. Federal law remains in direct conflict with the new Illinois state law. There are a number of issues that property owners should be concerned with on January 1.

Federal Subsidized Housing: In federal subsidized housing – like the Housing Authority of Cook County – medical or recreational use of marijuana has been and remains prohibited in the Housing Authority’s housing programs. This includes participants using Housing Choice (“Section 8”) Vouchers in the private rental market,

December 13, 2019

Illinois Suit Says E-Cigs are No Juul

by George Bellas

Lung injuries related to vaping began to appear on hospitals’ radar screens last summer, and the e-cigarette industry has been singed by criticism ever since.

Chicago Business Lawyer George Bellas warns about health issues with vaping

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had reported 42 deaths based on e-cigarette or vaping product use as of December 10, along with more than 2,400 cases of lung injury related to the products. In response, some cities and other local bodies have banned either e-cigarette flavors, or just e-cigarettes overall.

November 6, 2019

Expunging Old Marijuana Convictions

by George Bellas

The new Illinois laws legalizing cannabis has a benefit to old stoners – expungement of criminal records.

Among the several provisions of the Illinois Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act which takes effect on January 1 are provisions that include some dramatic criminal justice reforms. The most important of these provisions are the expungement provisions for certain past cannabis-related criminal convictions.

Illinois laws now permit expungement of prior cannabis related crimes.

October 22, 2019

Make Sure Your Website is ADA Compliant

by George Bellas

Is Your Website ADA Compliant?

UPDATED APRIL 14, 2021:

A federal appeals court in California has held that the protections of the ADA do not apply to websites. Its ruling also finds that Title III applies to tangible, physical places. It does not apply to intangible places such as a website. The case is: Gil v. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc., No. 17-13467 (11th Cir. 4/7/2021). Not all the circuits agree with this result, so SCOTUS will eventually have to look at the matter.

October 8, 2019

Chicago Business Lawyer answers the Question: Is Bitcoin the same as Blockchain?

by George Bellas

George Bellas explains Blockchain Technology

What is bitcoin? Is it the same as blockchain?

The quick answer is that bitcoin is not the same as blockchain.

September 24, 2019

Is Obesity a Disability?

by George Bellas

Employment Discrimination issues explained by George Bellas Chicago Business Lawyer

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including jobs, schools, transportation, and all other places that are open to the general public.[1] When it comes to employment, the ADA provides that employers covered by the statute may not discriminate against “qualified individuals” with a disability with respect to employment matters.[2] The ADA defines such individuals as applicants or employees who, with or without reasonable accommodation, can perform the essential functions of the job.[3] Thus, the most contested issue becomes the question of whether or not the employee has a disability, as that term is defined by the Act.

One type of claimed disability that is increasingly the subject of litigation is obesity. Although courts initially were reluctant to recognize obesity as a qualifying disability for purposes of the ADA protections, courts are increasingly willing to consider obesity as a disability giving plaintiffs status to raise ADA claims.

August 27, 2019

Employers Need Permission to Collect Biometrics

by George Bellas

Employers who collect fingerprints, face scans, or other biometric information such as retina or iris scans from employees or customers would be well-advised to ask permission and explain their purpose for collecting this data. If they don’t, they could be legally liable.

That’s in the wake of a relatively liberal interpretation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), which regulates the handling of biometric data, from the Illinois Supreme Court. The result of the ruling is that state-level lawsuits have greater latitude than those filed in federal court—but even suits dismissed at the federal level can sometimes be refiled in state court. The law remains in flux when it comes to what, exactly, constitutes biometric data. Photographs are not considered biometric identifiers, for example, but a software application that collects facial scans could be—and even federal courts have allowed for relatively broad interpretations on this front, mindful of the galloping pace of technological advances.

The Illinois Supreme Court in January defined an aggrieved person as anyone whose information is collected without their consent or knowledge, even if they were not harmed in the process, in the case Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp. (2019 IL 123186), issued on January 25 of this year and previously detailed on this blog. This means employers are liable for $1,000 in damages for each negligent violations and $5,000 for each intentional violations. For example, if an employer fingerprints employees each day as they check in and out of the office, and does not notify employees of the collection and storage of these fingerprints, the business could be fined $2,000 per day per employee. Perhaps not surprisingly, at least 90 class-action lawsuits alleging violations of BIPA have been filed since January in Illinois state courts.